Floristry and Artistry
by teachmehowtofall
Summary: Tattoo Artist/Florist AU: On the list of things Andromeda had never expected in her lifetime, owning her own tattoo parlor was at the top of the list. Owning her own tattoo parlor right next to a floristry owned by Ted Tonks wouldn't have even been on the list, because the idea was so ludicrous it never would have entered her mind.


Ted Tonks was a simple man; he knew that. He would be depressingly average, except for that he was so cheerful, and so kind, and so genuinely _happy_ to be alive.

He'd grown up in a decent neighborhood, gone to a great school (although on scholarship), gotten good grades, had a good number of friends, good enough at sports to get a spot on the team but nothing outstanding.

But what people could never understand was that he _liked_ it that way. He _liked_ being completely normal, a bit boring, even a little underestimated. Ted thought it was easier to be a kind person when there weren't people watching all the time, and Ted wanted to be kind.

And when he took over his grandparents' flower shop, no one was surprised. "It's just such a _Ted_ thing to do, isn't it?" they'd say. "They practically raised him and they love that shop; they'd want to keep it in the family. It's such a shame they're getting too old to take care of it." And Ted had always been good with plants, anyway.

It was a good job, booming in the summer with all the weddings, but picking up at Christmas and Valentine's Day. Plus, of course, birthdays throughout the year, "I'm sorry" bouquets, graduations, baby showers, births, funerals…. He couldn't really ask for a steadier job, except perhaps a mailman, and the location was quite nice too. Right next to a newly-opened tattoo place, which made some of the older gentlemen nervous when they came to get flowers for their wives, but there were never any problems with the owner of the place or the clientele. (Actually, so far it was just young girls getting infinity signs and anchors, but he'd heard one of them talking about "the semi-colon project" which he thought was rather lovely, once he looked it up.)

No, Ted didn't mind taking over the flower shop at all.

Andromeda Black was not what anyone would call particularly courageous. She followed her older sister loyally, obeyed her parents, did well in school, played piano and loved to paint. She was, basically, the perfect daughter. Right up until she wasn't.

The screaming match that occurred when Andromeda not only refused to go to the school her parents picked out for her and major in their "suggested" program but had also told them exactly where they could stick all their prejudices was only topped by the screaming match that had occurred when her older sister Bellatrix had run off and gotten married at eighteen to a man who was most likely in some kind of white-collar crime ring (although her parents got over it rather quickly when they realized how lucrative Rodolphus' "job" was).

And then she ran away to become a tattoo artist, much to their horror, because Andromeda loved art and she loved the connection people had to art and if they wanted to put that connection on their skin that was something she fully supported.

She opened a shop, with her uncle Alphard's help, right across from a florist, mainly because it was a good location, but also because she thought the juxtaposition was funny, and she'd always loved plants, even if she couldn't get them to grow to save her life. She'd taken a botany elective for about twenty minutes before being (politely) laughed out of the class.

But art—any kind of art—that was something she could do, and do well. Her parents had, after all, paid for the very best tutelage, if only because it gave them bragging rights: "Oh, yes, Andromeda's won the Future Generation Art Prize, and so young! We're very pleased with her accomplishments, of course," something she'd heard them say so much she wants to throw up at the thought.

But tattoo artistry… that was a real challenge. And Andromeda didn't mind the separation from her family in order to take on this challenge, or if she did she hid it well.

Ted figures it's only kind to bring over the new shop owner a "shopwarming" present, but because he has no idea what a tattoo artist place would need, he opts to make a plate of cookies, because who doesn't love cookies? And his grandmother's recipe for lemon sugar cookies is really, really good.

He is not, at all, expecting to see Andromeda Black, with tattoos winding delicately around her shoulder blade, bent over a teenage girl, inking a bird onto the underside of her arm.

Because Ted isn't an idiot, he waits until she finishes and turns off the gun before speaking. "Hi, I, er, have the shop next door, and I saw you just moved in, and I, um, I brought you cookies."

Andromeda looks up, and he is very sure it's the same girl he went to high school with, even though it makes absolutely no sense that she would be here, of all places. He'd thought she was off to whatever school everyone in her family had ever gone to, to major in art or classical studies or whatever it was the Black family majored in. But it has to be her, because no one but the Blacks have quite that shade of grey eyes, and certainly no one but a Black could possibly look so casually disdainful.

But then she smiles and suddenly he's not sure again, because he hadn't ever thought a Black could smile.

"Ted? Ted Tonks? Is that you?" she asks.

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah. It's me."

There is an awkward pause, and then: "So I'll just leave these here, yeah? You're busy and I've got a regular coming in, it's Tuesday, you know, so I'll just—yes" and he practically flees because everyone in their school had a crush on at least one of the Black sisters and Ted Tonks was not exceptional in that, either.

He puts the final touches on the bouquet for Arthur, who had been coming in every Tuesday for the past year, trying to win a girl's heart that was already won. But Ted can understand wanting to be cautious, to move slowly, to make certain, so he doesn't judge Arthur for making sure Molly is, in fact, head over heels for him because asking any important questions.

And then he bustles around, because tomorrow is Wednesday and that means that Mary will be by to get her midweek pick-me-up in the form of fresh flowers, and he likes to make sure he has a decent variety for her to choose from.

Then a skinny, bespectacled kid comes in, ruffling his already messy hair and asking if it's stupid to give a girl with a flower name the flowers that are her name. Ted gently steers him away from that option, because sometimes girls hate it and sometimes they love it but either way, variety is good, and then even more gently steers him away from buying this girl what amounts to an entire hothouse. "Moderation's the key, son," he says, even though this kid is probably only five or so years younger than him. "How about something like this?" and he pulls together a simpler arrangement of daisies and sunflowers and violets, and the kids rockets out a few minutes later, shouting a thanks over his shoulder and practically diving into his car.

But then he has a moment to think, which is exactly what he doesn't want, because—Andromeda Tonks? A tattoo artist? That would be exactly the opposite of what he'd expect from her, even if only because she always did what she was expected to do. Perfect grades, perfect hair, perfect clothes, the perfect amount of distance as she interacted with the scholarship kid in group projects, and the perfect amount of ambiguity as to whether she was distance because he was on scholarship, because he was obviously _not_ Anglo-Saxon, or because she was expected not to want to interact with him.

He had always supposed it was the latter, because once he'd found a sketch shoved into his locker, one of him in a botany elective that he knew she'd politely bowed out of before she could fail out, and the lines had somehow looked apologetic and hopeful all at once.

He hopes that perhaps she will be more able to ease the distance now.

On the list of things Andromeda had never expected in her lifetime, owning her own tattoo parlor was at the top of the list. Owning her own tattoo parlor right next to a floristry owned by Ted Tonks wouldn't have even been on the list, because the idea was so ludicrous it never would have entered her mind.

Ted Tonks bringing her homemade lemon cookies, on the other hand…. Well, that's just like Ted. He'd always been very kind in school, but what she remembered most about him was that he was never any kinder to her than he was to everyone else. That was rare, in her experience—people tended to fawn over her, over her family. They were especially kind, closer to flattering, but never Ted. Ted had always treated her with the same patient politeness he extended to all other people he'd ever met, and that had always made him stand out.

She had never understood how people could dismiss him as average. No one that happy to be alive, that mild, that sincere, could _possibly_ be average. She'd wanted to get to know him, to learn how his mind worked, to _draw him_ in the full complexity that she _knew_ he possessed, but of course that wouldn't have been acceptable. She'd only been able to manage a hasty charcoal sketch that she'd shoved in his locker before anyone could see, a way of apology for her enforced distance and a prayer that maybe they could be friends, in the future.

Her lips curve into a smile. The future, she thinks, is today.

Her shop closes before his does, by a margin of about half an hour, so she squares her shoulders and walks in, the bell tinkling cheerily as she enters.

It tinkles again when the door shuts behind her, but she doesn't notice because she's staring in delight at the room. Half is brick, and the other half is green cinderblock, but there is ivy weaving over the walls and what looks like a tiny greenhouse in the back, and she is impressed but not surprised (never surprised) at what Ted has done to make the place a tiny tropical paradise.

"What can I do for—oh, Andromeda," Ted says, head popping out from around a hanging planter. "Did you need any flowers?"

"No," she answers, feeling the familiar itch in her fingers and she looks all around. She _needs_ to get this place on paper, needs it in charcoal and in watercolor and in oils and in every other medium she can. Crayon, even. Anything.

Ted is speaking, she realizes a moment later, but she is already moving slowly over to the brick and the ivy and—were those roses? How had he possibly managed to get roses to climb so beautifully over a _wall_?—and she suddenly blurts out: "Do you have any paper? And any kind of writing utensil?"

He cocks his head, but obligingly hands over some paper out of a drawer and a pen, and then her hands are flying and he's staring at his shop come to life again on the back of a receipt from three Christmases ago.

When she stops drawing, she looks up sheepishly. "Sorry, I came in here to say hello and to thank you for the cookies but now I need to ask if I can come in here sometime and draw? I don't think I can live unless I get this down in as many mediums as possible."

He grins, pleased. "Sure. Anytime. I thought you didn't like plants, though?"

She laughs, remembering the horrible botany class. "I like them, I just can't keep them alive."

He nods at the receipt. "I think you made them come alive alright." And he watches as she blushes, fascinated, because she's shown more life in the past ten minutes than she did in four years at school.

"Can I go get paint and come back right now?" she asks in a rush, as if afraid he'll say no.

He shrugs. "Sure. I don't think there will too many more people coming in. You could stay for dinner, if you like. My grandma was over yesterday and she always brings more food than any one person could eat."

"I'd like that," Andromeda says without thinking, and then dashes over to pull out all her supplies before realizing that not only has she impetuously agreed to have dinner with someone she barely knows, she's also excited about the prospect.

Over dinner they talk about what they did after school. He cringes when she describes the fight she had just before leaving her home, and her face softens when he explains the failing health of his grandparents.

That's when she notices the drawing that he had forgotten sat framed on his coffee table.

"Oh my God," he says, putting his hand up to cover his eyes. "I didn't—my grandma found it when I was moving here, said it was the best picture of me in the universe, and went out and bought a frame for it about two minutes later. She won't let me move it. Not that I want to!" he adds hastily. "Because it's really—really great. I always liked it."

"How did you know it was from me?" she asks softly, picking it up and tracing the lines.

"No one else can put that much emotion into a couple lines and some shading," he answers with a shrug. "It had to be you."

"I… always wanted to be friends with you," Andromeda confesses. "But… it wouldn't have been allowed. Which is awful to say, that skin color can determine your worth as a person, but—that's what they think and it took me a while to realize how wrong they are. Not until…. When I met you I realized that there was no way that kind of thinking could ever work. No one as kind as you could be less of a person than me just because I have less melanin in my skin. So I drew that, because I wanted to apologize for all the distance and coldness I gave to you when you were only ever kind, but I couldn't… I wouldn't have been able to find the words even if I'd been able to muster up the bravery to be seen alone with you."

Ted runs a hand through his hair. "I figured out most of that," he says, "although maybe not quite to that extent." There is another pause, and then: "Friends, then?" he asks, holding out his hand.

She takes it. "Friends," she confirms, and so they are. And then they are dating, and then they are engaged, and then they are married in the tiniest ceremony known to man—his grandparents, her uncle and cousin—and then they are parents, but they are always, always, friends.


End file.
